Tag Text Objects

Finally, Neovim defines an additional text-object, which comes in handy when working with XML or HTML tags.

Let's take a quick look:

Initial Condition
<ul>
····<li>one</li>
····<li>two</li>
····<li>three</li>
····<li>four</li>
</ul>
NORMAL
29%
2:1
 
Select Inner Tag
vit
<ul>
····<li>one</li>
····<li>two</li>
····<li>three</li>
····<li>four</li>
</ul>
VISUAL
29%
2:11
 
Select Around Tag
vat
<ul>
····<li>one</li>
····<li>two</li>
····<li>three</li>
····<li>four</li>
</ul>
VISUAL
29%
2:16
 

In this example, the cursor starts on a line containing an HTML tag, and the tag text-object allows us to quickly move the cursor inside the tag and select the associated text, which can be very convenient when working with these types of files. As mentioned previously we also had the option to select the text around the tag, as demonstrated in Step 2.

This section was intended to provide just an introduction to the concept of text-objects, to provide useful background as we continue to learn the fundamentals of Neovim. If you would like to learn more about working with text objects, jump forward to our text objects section.